Fashioning Voldemort: The Story of Tom Riddle
by Tatum MacNamara
Summary: This is a slightly off-canon telling of the life of Tom Riddle beginning when he is a fifth year in the year 1941.


**Chapter One**

"And then we're going on a cruise along the Seine for at least a month," Abraxas Malfoy boasted.

The newly-finished, fifth-year Slytherin wizards were gathered about in the last compartment on the Hogwarts Express. Traditionally, it was the seventh years who occupied the back cabins, but this particular group of boys had occupied it since their third years. That was the time that Tom Riddle had decided that he wanted to sit there. No one ever told him 'No,' not for long anyway.

Riddle was among the wizards, now, as he always was. But he was also not with them all at once without any of them being wiser for it, which was also quite usual. What he was thinking about was a curse he had come up with that morning when he had enjoyed what would be the last of his private showers until September.

As the hot water ran down the long expanse of his spine, it had come to him, bringing a smirk across his face. It was a brutal bit of magic, one that he imagined would have the ability to turn a human body inside out. The idea of what that would look like, sound like made every cell that formed skin come alive. At this present moment, Riddle was thinking of what Abraxas Malfoy would look like under its effects. Would his housemate's parents still take him on his cruise if they could see for themselves how unremarkable he was? That there was nothing inside of him besides the same meat and guts as everyone. He was not special because of his name or because of his money.

He could die badly like any other boy. All over the world at this very minute boys were dying that were there age. Abraxas could easily be one of them, Tom rationalized. What difference did it make?

"What about you, Riddle? Spain? Greece? Where are you headed?" Malfoy asked. He leaned back on the bench and propped his boots up on the bench just beside Tom, lounging as if he owned the place.

"No one's told me, yet, " Tom replied. His gaze shifted from his housemate's face to his feet. Reaching inside of his pocket, he removed his wand and gave the wizard's boot a warning prod.

They weren't technically allowed to do magic on the train, of course, and Tom would not risk being expelled over such a ridiculous thing. But Abraxas did not know that. At the first sensation of the poke, he put his feet upon the floor where they belonged. Riddle smirked with self-satisfaction.

He had, of course, lied to Abraxas. He knew precisely where he would spend this summer holiday, and it was far from any of the places the blonde pureblood could imagine. Riddle would summer in the filthy muggle orphanage he was a prisoner of until he was 17. Dumbledore had made it quite clear that he must remain there and have proper guardians if he wished to stay at Hogwarts. It was yet another example of Dumbledore's infernal meddling. How easy it was for him to demand such a thing! Never would the headmaster have to spend a night there, a week, a month. He had no way of comprehending how vile and reprehensible existence was there; he had no way of knowing how much Tom suffered.

And no one else did, either. As far as his housemates were concerned, he was glad of it.

The train was pulling into the station. Around him, goodbyes left lips, and farewells reached ears. Riddle gave a parting nod to his companions and quit the cabin. He retrieved his trunk outside and went on his way, leaving behind the Platform and the life he hated saying goodbye to far more than he ever could his ridiculous, pompous housemates.

Outside, a truck was waiting. It had been the same truck every year, but this year it was not the vicar who drove it. Well, it was -a- vicar, but not the one he was used to. It made little difference, though. As soon as he heard the way the man slurred out his surname, he was certain he'd hate him as much as the last one. "Riiiiidddle?"

Tom just stared at the man, and let the sight of him lifting his trunk into the bed of the vehicle be answer enough. Stuffing his hands into his pockets, he strode around to the passenger side and got inside. He did not speak as they pulled away. Unlike the usual vicar, this man was silent. Occasionally, he glanced in Tom's direction, but that was all.

Riddle would have been contented with this, had he not looked out the window to see them turning on an unfamiliar stretch of road.

"Hammersmith is not this way," he balked.

"We're not going there," the vicar replied. He took off his hat and looked mournful.

"What do you mean? Where are we going?" he demanded.

"The Wilton Home for Boys was destroyed two weeks ago. Air raid. The boys are in a temporary locale in St. Giles now...the ones that are left."

The wince that came from the wizard had nothing to do with the idea that some of the boys that had lived with him were now dead. It was the thought that he was being taken somewhere new that unnerved him. For the first time, he noticed rubble out the window. He grew rather somber as he looked upon the sight of a burned out school, one that would have been far too nice for him to have attended when he was a boy learning to read and write.

"Don't tell me you're sorry, either," Riddle hissed. "I'm not."

"God forgive you for saying such a thing," the vicar scolded.

The young man said nothing back. He did not believe in God, after all. And if by some chance the deity did exist, he could just add it to his list of grievances against Tom Riddle. Surely, there would be more before his life were finished, anyway.


End file.
